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Take 2 and 3D Realms: FIGHT!

The latest chapter in the saga of 3D Realms’ closure has turned another corner with publisher Take 2 deciding to sue them for not giving them a game to publish. In this case, Duke Nukem Forever. Take 2 decided to buy the IP from 3D Realms for a cool $30 million, but from what I understand, 3D Realms has kindly told them to pound salt believing the IP to be worth far more. For those of you out there who have no idea what “IP” is, it means “intellectual property”, the heart and soul of, in this case, the Duke Nukem franchise.

If Take 2 owned the IP, they could conceivably do anything with it that they wanted to…more games, spinoffs like Duke Nukem Racing, cheesy tech demos like Duke Nukem Crysis Edition for Vista 64, or Duke Nukem lunchboxes if they were into that kind of thing. Owning the IP to any property pretty much gives the owner the rights to bastardize the property in any way that they see fit. 3D Realms obviously thought that there was a lot more than $30 mil to be made with the Duke property, even without lunchboxes, which is likely why they say nay and decided to close shop than to disrespect the IP.

So now that Take 2 is suing 3D Realms, Blue’s reports that the Shack has gone through the publicly available court docs to find out just what is going on and none other than Derek Smart has weighed in to break down what it may mean in Blue’s talkback. For all of the garbage that Derek Smart has had to deal with over his storied career, he’s been there and has fought his battles, especially with Take 2 who he had actually taken to court before…twice…and won.